AGENTS SEIZE WEAPONS 173 MACHINE GUNS FOUND IN HIALEAH

Federal agents seized 173 fully automatic machine guns, which are illegal and frequently used by narcotics traffickers, from a shed behind a Hialeah house on Friday.

The guns, which agents said are capable of firing 70 rounds a minute, were found after a three-month investigation that federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents launched after a former Hialeah police officer was arrested.

The machine guns are 9mm model SM-90 Phantom submachine guns, said Robert Creighton, special agent in charge of ATF in Florida. They were manufactured by a company licensed to produce the weapons in 1985 and 1986.

Creighton said the guns have a "unique design and an extremely large ammunition capacity ... with tremendous firepower capability, which surpasses other machine guns of its type."

"This is the weapon of choice for the drug dealer," said Bruce Snyder, a special agent with ATF. The guns seized on Friday can hold two clips, or 140 bullets, he said.

Snyder said no arrests have been made in connection with the machine guns that were seized, but he said the evidence consfiscated will be presented to a federal grand jury for possible indictments.

Officials said that the Hialeah ex-officer, Tom Nevins Jr., 36, triggered the firearms investigation after he was arrested carrying crack cocaine, an Uzi- type machine gun and a duffel bag filled with grenades in November.

Nevins, who left the Hialeah Police Department in 1987 because of medical disability, was vice president of a now-defunct arms company, Military Research Corp., which manufactured the guns confiscated on Friday, ATF agents said.

Nevins was also president of the Hialeah Fraternal Order of Police when he applied for the gun-manufacturing license with another Hialeah police officer in 1982.

According to reports at that time, Nevins was a controversial officer who was suspended four times.